Posts for June 21, 2025 (page 9)

Registration photo of Wayne for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Five Years

Would have been a weekend job
Just five years ago.
Work ethic would have kicked into overdrive
For both of us.

Worked long hours into the night,
Cutting wood,
Building shelving,
Installing cabinets.

A small remodeling project
Would have been finished like
A TV series binge-watched
On Netflix.

The difference five years can make.
We seem, we feel, much older.
That work-ethic sags under the weight
Of tired bodies and a demand for naps
That was not there five years ago.

It may take two weeks
Instead of two or three days.
Maybe longer.
Plus, it depends upon what is streaming
On Britbox.


Registration photo of S.L.Bradley for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Missing pieces

Always one step forward two steps back
forever missing pieces of my heart
wish it didn’t hurt
distractions help a little
fighting 
crying 
living 
dying
nothing seems right
a place of my own 
when will it feel like home 
missing pieces everywhere
 
once again life is unfair
how many times does one soul 
need to live the lessons it already knows
wandering
looking
searching
hoping
for those missing pieces to return
to fill the void
 
I stumble upon the sweetest church
welcoming me 
I sit and pray 
I pray for peace 
I pray for healing and forgiveness
someday, maybe someday 
I won’t feel so lost and alone.
 just maybe my missing pieces will come home. 
 
 

Registration photo of Louise Tallen for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Morning Routine While Waiting for the Apocalypse

Start coffee, feed cats, 
Stand at the counter drinking coffee
While 
                   D
                   O
                   O
                   M
                    S
                    C
                    R
                    O
                    L
                    L
                    I
                    N
                    G
Through the headlines, wondering whether

        Today will bring a

                       HR
                  S           O
             U                   O
       M               C           M
                          L
                          O
                          U
                          D


Category
Poem

You don’t know him

The way I knew him
his big broad smile, his touch
his crinkly blue eyes
his baritone voice, his strut
his kindness, his love, his kiss. 


Registration photo of Linda Meg Frith for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

A Space of Twenty Years

The last time I saw you,a dinner
at my bungalow, the neighbor’s cat
was already scratching at my door,
begging for the salmon on the grill
You were with my friend, your wife,
we were aware of the shadow
of cancer. but she was talking
about law school, briefs and how
justice is best served swiftly.

I made Greek salad because Christy
introduced me to feta cheese and I
couldn’t get enough of it, or her,
the way she relished everything,
the way she looked at you.

You were my friend first, we had
that instant Aries connection, but shy,
unlike most fire signs. We talked for hours,
sometimes without words, saying I know
before anything was said.

I moved to New Mexico.
Christy succumbed to cancer,
You buried yourself in your grief.
Time passed, as only time
can do. We lost touch,
justice took a wrong turn.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Category
Poem

Fleeble

Fleeble
Flobble
Gleeble
Globble

Beeble
Bobble
Seeble
Sobble

Deeble
Dobble
Reeble
Robble

People
Topple
Stable
Marble


Registration photo of Laverne Zabielski for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Reflecting on Actions

    Writing Practice, January 4, 2005    
    Gail, Steve, Leatha

We are reflecting on our actions

thinking about what we’ve done 

we are doing this in the form of writing.

 

In my element

I am steeped in deep dialogue 

where I always want to be

where I went in all my affairs   

I sink my teeth in, dig in 

I go to work.

 

We are reflecting on our actions 

considering caution

I am reading bell hooks 

in her teaching she discovered

she could not please everyone, a goal

I, too, want to give up

and, yet, it repeatedly reappears

I want to give up

being white and having to say it right 

I want fearlessly

to continue exploration

I am where I’ve always wanted to be.


Registration photo of Tabitha Dial for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Garden Math

1

You have three seedlings and one
funny story after the bluejays stole 
the sunflower seeds from the bed you put them in.
How many weeks did it take
you to find them growing after
you caught the birds busting a few seeds
against the garden bed wall?
 
2
How many pinwheels are needed
to keep all the birds away,
provided none of them stay frightened?
 
3
If you have five clones that hold their ground, 
begun from beefsteak and hardy cherry tomato in May, 
how many tomatoes will you have by August, 
not counting the original two plants?
 
4
How many blessings are divided 
among five jalapeño, four red bell, 
two green bell, a cajun bell and two
cubanell pepper plants, after the cost
of purchase, and how many pots of coffee
will you and your lover drink
to get the grounds needed
to give them nitrogen-rich soil?

Extra Credit: How many cups of coffee

did you have when you bought
that many starter plants?
 
5
How many weeks will squash and zucchini
only produce male blooms, if it
stays chilly and rainy most of spring 
into half of June?
 
6
More than half of your mulch
came with the property
and it holds micro-miracles.
If you keep looking and tending,
when will small wonders cease?

Registration photo of D. Dietz for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Equinox (2022)

First day out this fall
Gray, cloudy little morning
Just me and the dawn.

Breeze rustling my hair
High-alert senses thrumming
I’m Alive, alive!

The best vantage point,
I’m the watcher on the hill
Looking for movement

I can feel the past
We’ve done this since time immemorial
Watching and waiting

I feel the primal
outdoors, hiking or hunting
We’re built just for this

But today’s info
Is relayed by text message
And I have Starbucks 


Registration photo of Dana Wangsgard for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Ode to the Cult Kids- ( in cantor and beat of Dr. Seuss, “who” was also there)

I was raised in a world where coconuts clacked,

Where knights lost limbs but never cracked.

Where spam was a meal, a mantra, a song,

And reason was something they got terribly wrong.

 

Then Little Shop bloomed on my worn-out screen,

With a bloodthirsty plant and a girl named green.

Seymour begged, and Audrey dreamed,

And I sang along while the flower schemed.

 

Oh, we grew up strange, and thank the stars,

On midnight shows and VCRs.

Where brains went “Abby Normal” with a groan,

And Frau Blücher made horses moan.

Teri Garr danced like a dream,

In a castle stitched from fevered steam.

 

We did the Time Warp every fall,

With rice in our pockets and fishnets for all.

Frank-N-Furter’s gaze, so fierce, so sly,

Taught us to question who, what, where, and why.

Then Bowie’s stare through the crystal ball,

And The Princess Bride—the best tale of all.

“Inconceivable!” still rings in my ear,

And “As you wish” brings back a tear.

 

We weren’t the cool kids with letterman pride,

But we knew every line where the weird ones reside.

We mouthed the words before the cue,

And loved every monster, villain, and shrew.

Magic was real—if offbeat and odd—

We laughed at fate, we winked with God.

 

So here’s to the freaks, the nerds, the divine,

The ones who sang “Feed me” in perfect time.

To castles that rocked and knights who fall,

To talking hands on dungeon walls.

We were the strange, the fringe, the free—

And it all made sense to a kid like me.

 

Now way past grown, I tuck these films in my soul,

A VHS heart, a celluloid scroll.

When the world gets dull, too sharp, too straight—

I press rewind… and reanimate.